Ordinary People's Lives
by planet p
Summary: AU; about some ordinary people who meet Jarod, Emily, Ethan and Gemini.


**Ordinary People's Lives** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

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**Nat Carter**

To be fair, I'd have to say my first thought of the lot of them was, _What a weird bunch!_ Pretty closely followed by my second thought, _Hot-tie!_ I'm not attached, and attraction's not a crime, so I didn't feel one bit of shame, and Jay Ferretti was _hot_, even if he had a grown son, Jerome, who I'd decided, as of the moment of learning his name, to call Jerry. Clara and Giovanni were Jay's younger siblings; though, at first, I'd thought Giovanni might be with Clara (they sure didn't look anything like siblings), but, no, apparently they were siblings alright (_Poor guy,_ I thought, feeling for their dad immediately; so mom had cheated on him and still let him (and the kid) believe he was the father). Of course, it might have been anything else; adoption, half sibling, adoption… anything else, I reminded myself later.

So, huh, what do the Ferrettis even have to do with me you may be wondering by this point? (Dah, Nat!) Well, I'm renting out my mom's old place to them, which, lo and behold, I just _happen_ to live across from – and when I say across, I mean 'across': across the hall! There is literally nothing more than two doors and a corridor between our places.

So that's the gist. Got it? Ace!

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**Larry McAddy**

My sister and I, Susannah, we work at this place… well, it's a company… answering phones and filling out forms, that kind of stuff. It's usually dead boring, but today my sister announced that she'd made a friend. I know, how _weird_ is that! So Sannah comes up to me and says, _Guess what, Larry, I made a new friend!_ Like it Christmas or something! Anyway, weirdness aside, she then grabs my arm and starts to pull me away from my desk (which, mind you, I'm not sorry for) and we end up in the break room, and then she's like, _This is Clara. Clara, this is Larry. My brother._ And I just about fall over, coz Clara… she's awesome! I mean, just awesome! And then I realise that me, I'm not so awesome, coz I've got this massive crush on someone who's: a) my sister's new best friend, and b) I've just met, like, literally, five seconds ago.

So now I'm like I'm stunned, and I don't really know what to do or say, so I just open my mouth and say, _Clara? Is that Dutch?_ And you should see Sannah's face!

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**Nate Holmes**

The first order of the day, after a good, strong coffee hit and stepping into my office at Holmes Constructions is to check up on Benito, see how he's getting along with the orders, but he's not in yet, though he'd promised to be in early. I gotta give the guy some slack, though, his wife's just had a kid, on top of three others, so I guess, just for the first few days… a bit of slack.

Lorraine, one of the office girls, comes in to explain about how her cousin, Maria, who also works in the office, is sick with laryngitis so that's why she couldn't call up and let me know. That's okay, I tell her; I'll have to follow up on that story later.

At about ten, I have some interviews with a couple of prospective employees. I'm looking for some new guys since we got this new job down on 52nd and Rota, so I figure I gotta get on that ASAP; it's not long 'til we start work on the place, as long as the permits all come through and the tests are positive.

The first two guys have the same name, Ferretti, then there's some other guys, and, about seven other guys down the track, there's another Ferretti, except this one looks a lot like the first one, so I figure that these two, at least, could be family.

The first guy, Jay, seemed like he was on top of things, so I ask this one, Jerome, if they're related and he says, yeah, they are, except he never says how; he's got a whole heap of questions for _me_.

I'm not so keen on Jerome (that kid really knows how to annoy a guy with all of those questions he'd asked) but I figure it's probably best to hire the kid if I'm going to hire the older one, Jay, so I decide I'll probably hire the three of them and be done with it.

The one I'm not sure about, if he's related to the other two or not, hadn't asked a lot of questions; he didn't really seem like the questions kind. I don't see the need for questions unless they're directly related to the job at hand, and, well, with all of this OH&S stuff that's got all popular nowadays; but the kid had really kinda freaked me out, kinda like the taxation department or some shrink. Spooky, but hey, the kid's just outta college, he's got a lot to learn and a long way to go. I oughta give him a chance at some of that learning in the real world.

Like, take for example, is it true what we say on our website? You've got to be frickin' kidding me! I don't read our website, and I certainly don't spend hours cruising around on it reading every little detail. Some guy at AnalyticCyber does the website stuff for us – how would I know anything about it? Karan, my PA, got all that set up, but she's away today; some out-of-town conference I'd vehemently refused to attend, so she'd caved in and volunteered to go in my place. I bet she's sitting in some badly ventilated room right now, wondering what in the Hell they're all on about!

Once the paperwork's sorted, I'm assured by Jay that he'll be on time to work tomorrow morning; they're somewhat low on funds ('they,' apparently they _are_ a family) so there's not going to be any celebratory drinks tonight. Maybe some apple juice, though, if Clara picks some up on her way home from work like she'd said she would.

I start to ask who this Clara is – mother, sister, girlfriend – when my phone rings from my office, and I have to excuse myself. Ah well, another time, I guess.

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**Jilly**

My job _sucks_! And I mean sucks! Not like, aw, sometimes it's kinda crappy or retarded, but, like, right now, I'm mopping up this spill on the floor and there's totally trashy music over the stereo – I mean, I _never_ listen to that channel, it's God awful, and that's on a good day; I figure today's a stinking day – so I'm listening to some chick go on about her missing pooch, or whatever, and my back is killing me… well, no, it's murdering me, and I'm thinking, _God, shut up, bitch! I'm the one who's got half an hour 'til a lousy break, and I've got my period! Which is why – my back is killing!_

Okay, so don't get the wrong impression, 'kay, coz I'm not usually this bitchy, but my bestie's bf just dumped her, I've got my period, I'm mopping up this crap, and I have to listen to _that_ verbal refuse! It kinda adds up to Jilly – Bitchier than usual!

Sheena Shapiro! I totally forgot to tell youse guys this – but I work at this supermarket place around the corner from my bestie's ex-bf's place, which, let me tell you, sucks! But mostly coz I have to walk _past_ his place to get to work, and, this morning, I saw him with his new girlfriend, not 24 hours after he'd dumped DeShauna! What a jerk! I reckon he's been mucking around with her for a while, so later, when I finally get home, I'm gonna sit down to write the creep some quality hate _mail_! At least thinking about writing hate mail to my bff's lousy ex makes me feel a bit better.

I'm about done with the spill when some chick walks up to me and asks if we have price readers so she can check the price on the whatever it is she's holding and _really_ wants to check the price on, so I tell her, no, sorry, but I can get a friend to do it at the register, and then if she doesn't want it then, that's okey dandy.

Okay, so Virtue's not really my friend. She's _that_ nasty she should be, like, crowned the Queen of Nasty and get bequeathed her own county so she can rack off out of ours; BTW, that's not even her name, it's really Verity, she just thinks it makes her all, like, pure and innocent; what a load of barfing yaks! So, anyway, I'm kinda glad I get a break from the next crappy mop job I'll no doubt have lined up after this one, and kinda _Glitter!_ coz I know Virtue's gonna be hissy about the chick's price check coz she'd rather be hitting on the boys who come in from the grammar some ways up the road, or Jake from the Customer Enquiries desk who, like, smokes way too much.

But, hey, I'm happy!

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**Um, what was the point of that? I don't know… Oh well, we'll see. Thanks for reading.**


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